Sales teams can often make or break the success of a new luxury brand or product. As competition between retailers and brands grows, it becomes increasingly important to stimulate the sales team's motivation for higher sales performance and stronger commitment to their own organization. It is the most influential communication vehicle for launching a new product or brand and should therefore be considered even prior to consumers.

In Luxury Sales Force Management, Michaela Merk examines the strategies that allow managers from luxury organizations to win their sales team's hearts and minds, enabling higher sales performance. Based on new research into luxury sales teams worldwide, Merk explores how salespeople's relationships with brands they sell emerge, how they can be characterized and what top management should do to strengthen these in order to use the sales force–brand relationship as a strategic tool. Merk shows that these relationships have the power to increase salespeople's selling motivation, their commitment to both the organization and its brands, and ultimately the success of the company.

• One of the first books to focus on strengthening the bond between the sales team and the brand. • Based on 4 years of intense research in which over 600 salespeople and top managers in the luxury industry were interviewed. • Contains 18 management strategies aimed at reinforcing the five key emotional facets that help build strong ties between a brand and its sales force: Love, Identification, Trust, Pride and Recognition. • Contains easy-to-use checklists, models and frameworks that can be applied in any company. • Illustrated by 150 quotes from salespeople and managers of over 50 premium and luxury brands, such as Cartier, Prada, Fendi and Hermès. • Features innovative graphics and humorous illustrations, drawn by well-known cartoonist Albert Dessinateur

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Dr. Michaela Merk is an international marketing and retail expert. She is the founder of Merk Vision & Partners, a global consultancy and training agency for brands and retailers in the luxury, cosmetics and fashion sectors. She has held top management positions with international responsibility at corporations such as L'Oréal, Estée Lauder Companies and Marionnaud.

Using her broad experience in online and offline marketing from brand building, retailing to top management, she advises and trains international companies worldwide such as L'Oréal, Lacoste, Hermès, Shanghai Jahwa (China) and has worked with BCG, Roland Berger, and Bain & Company. She gives seminars and lectures at conferences and events worldwide and teaches at business schools in Europe, Middle East and Asia (including ESSEC, Sorbonne, IFM, Sup de Luxe, Beida and East China Normal University). Dr. Michaela Merk is associate professor in management at the leading University Paris Dauphine and member of the research laboratory 'Brand and Values' at Sorbonne Graduate Business School, where she also obtained her PhD. The leading speakers' agency 'Speakers Excellence' counts her among the top 100 trainers in Europe.

1. How brand relationships influence daily business operations2. How relationships between salespeople and brands become emotional3. How top management can win salespeople's heart – the four strategies4.How brands can make frontline salespeople's heart beat5. Top 10 'heart-winners' through brand perception 6. How brands can benefit from strong sales force – brand relationships7. Why retailers should establish strong relationships between salespeople and private brands8. How salesperson characteristics influence their relationships with brands9. Do managers think like salespeople?10. Sales force – brand relationships: a given phenomenon or a building process?11. Implications for brands and retailers